


The Unlikely Traitor

by osprey_archer



Category: The Lost Prince - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Genre: Gen, Loyalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-21
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-12 12:19:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/811533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marco always thought he could trust the Rat's loyalty absolutely. When that trust is betrayed, Marco is crushed. But his duty to Samavia demands that he must search for justice - and for answers</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Betrayal

It would not have befitted the honor of the House of Loristan or the nation of Samavia for Marco to pace back and forth on the throne dais in front of his entire court. Therefore Marco sat in his throne, a little below his father’s, as calm as if the eyes and the whispers of the court were not fixed on him. 

The mocking gaze of the Jiardasian ambassador, dashing in his short velvet cape, especially vexed Marco. The ambassador looked as self-satisfied as a cat, his white teeth flashing occasionally when he could not fight back his smile any longer. “Where is Captain Ratcliffe?” he asked, just loud enough that Marco could hear, and it took all Marco’s self-control to remain calm in his seat. 

The Rat would be here soon, he told himself. He would be here at any moment, and then he would explain everything, and they would trust him again. They should never have doubted him, when he had helped bring the message across Europe to Samavia. But of course they did not know the Rat like Marco did.

And they could not forget that the Rat was British. “He _is_ a foreigner,” General Sapt had said, his voice gruff, during the Cabinet meeting that had led to this gathering in the throne room. 

“ _I’m_ a foreigner,” Marco pointed out with asperity. 

The cabinet was so shocked that no one spoke. “Oh no, sir,” said old Tamboran, who was in charge of the exchequer. “A Loristan could never be a foreigner.” 

And Marco had not pressed the matter, because he knew that he had to be Samavian for them, even if he still sometimes felt hopelessly confused by the customs of the country that he would one day rule. 

Marco wished the Rat would arrive. Despite his resolve to sit still and dignified, he briefly touched his father’s signet ring. If only his father were here! 

But Stefan Loristan was away, calming Kaiser Wilhelm from another one of his rages. Marco could not call him back from a mission that was of such importance to Europe. Certainly not for something as minor as this. 

Minor. 

But it _was_ minor, Marco told himself fiercely. He and the Rat would laugh about it that evening, sitting in front of Marco’s fire. 

The throne room, hitherto buzzing quietly, fell abruptly silent. The Rat had entered. 

The silence remained. Marco could hear the soft creak of the Rat’s crutches as he traversed the long tiled floor. A pigeon flapped across the vaulted ceiling, its soft wing-beats seeming so loud that many of the courtiers looked up. The Rat swung through the long pools of gold light that the tall arched windows spilled across the tiled floor, the gold braiding and the medals on his tunic glinting in the sun. They were not mere courtesy medals: the army itself had demanded that the Rat be made captain when his brilliant grasp of strategy saved Melzarr from a sneak attack by the last rogue brigade from the Iarovitch army. 

And they would trust the Rat again, Marco told himself. The Rat would clear himself publicly of the charge that he was treating with the Jiardasians, and all would be as before. 

He found that despite all his attempts to appear calm, his hands were clenched and icy cold. 

At last the Rat reached the foot of the dais. He bowed as well as he could on his crutches, wavering with the strain of holding himself up in such an awkward position. and waited for Marco to speak. 

Marco found that he did not know what to say. He sat, sweat trickling down his back, and his hands growing tighter and tighter on the arms of his throne while the Rat’s crutches began to wobble from holding himself up. 

“Captain,” Marco began, but his voice was barely a whisper; and before he could try again, the Rat’s left crutch slipped on the polished floor and he clattered to the ground. 

The court seemed to gasp. Marco was halfway down the dais before he realized he had moved. The Jiardasian ambassador gave a laugh so brief and mocking that his face was smooth again by the time that Marco turned to glare at him. 

A guard stepped forward to help the Rat. The Rat slapped away the helping hand. Instead, he hauled himself painfully back to his feet, falling in a heap halfway through and then pulling himself up again. His boots, always so carefully blacked, left a streak of polish on the floor. “My apologies, Your Highness,” he said, his face very red. 

“The apologies are mine, Captain Ratcliffe,” said Marco. His face was at hot as the Rat’s must have been, though he hoped his darker skin hid it better. 

But now, even more than before, he did not know what to say. The silence stretched again. A pigeon cooed among the vaults. The Rat looked at him, but Marco found that he could not bring himself to look back. 

What would Stefan Loristan do? He would simply tell the truth. So Marco said, “Captain Ratcliffe, you are accused of trying to sell a blueprint of the palace to the Jiardasians.”

The Rat’s scarlet face turned abruptly white. 

Marco gave a strange laugh. “I know it’s ridiculous,” he assured the Rat. “Not just ridiculous - it’s an affront to your honor - I told them it was ridiculous. You would never betray Samavia. That’s why I had everyone gathered here, so everyone can witness the disproving of these false accusations.” 

Marco stopped. He looked at the Rat, waiting for him to speak, to say something that proved false the seemingly incontrovertible mound of evidence that the Cabinet had presented to Marco. But the Rat, still white-faced, remained silent. Doubt curdled in Marco’s stomach. 

But of course! The Rat was, he must be, waiting for Marco’s permission to speak. The Rat was a stickler for protocol. “Go ahead," Marco said. "I know you can prove the accusations false. Why did you go to the Golden Bough to meet with Miarsa, who is a known Jiardasian spy?”

Silence. The women’s skirts rustled in the quiet, almost like the sound of the pigeons flying across the ceiling. The Rat looked Marco steadily in the face, his gray eyes clear and steady, but he did not say anything. 

“You will prove that the accusations are false,” Marco repeated, more loudly, and when the Rat still did not speak, Marco descended the last few steps and said, quietly, “Rat - ”

“I can’t,” the Rat said, just as quietly. His eyes were fixed on Marco’s, his gaze so fierce and steady that he seemed to be trying to speak to Marco with his eyes. 

“What do you mean?” Marco said. 

“I mean,” said the Rat, his voice measured, looking steadily into Marco’s face, “that I can’t.” His voice rose, so that it rang through the hall. “I am afraid the accusation is true.” 

The year before, Marco had been shot. At first it had not hurt. The bullet had hit him in the arm, and it was as if all the air had been squeezed out of him, as if he were a bellows, and his arm had felt very strange. Marco remembered looking at it, watching the blood ooze out over his sleeve, as if it were someone else’s arm. And there had been no pain. 

And then the Rat had tackled him off his horse, shouting, “Marco!” And his voice had also sounded very far away. And Marco had hit the road, and suddenly he could feel again, and his arm hurt so much that in that moment he would have cut it off if it would have stopped the pain. 

It had been a Jiardasian assassin, hiding in the cheering crowds as Marco and his father led Marco's eighteenth birthday cavalcade through Melzarr. 

Marco felt much the same now: the same sense that he had been knocked out of his body and could feel no pain. “You’ve been treating with the Jiardasians,” Marco said, and he gave a brief meaningless laugh. “You tried to sell them a blueprint to the palace. To the Jiardasians, who tried to kill my father and me last year. The Jiardasians, who nearly shot _you_.”

The Rat’s gray eyes remained clear and steady on Marco’s face. But he did not deny it. 

“Your most esteemed and royal highness, I protest!” said the Jiardasian ambassador, his voice ringing through the throne room. Marco had almost forgotten that he and the Rat were not alone. “The nation of Jiardasia wants nothing more than to live in peace with its Samavian neighbor, for two such great nations ought always to be bound together by the bonds of amity. It can only be the Beltrazans, your highness, who are responsible for last year’s - ”

“ _I_ protest!” cried the Beltrazan ambassador, storming forward, his long beard all but bristling with wrath. 

“ - despicable outrage against your most esteemed royal persons!” the Jiardasian ambassador finished, flourishing his cloak. His cheeks were red, and despite himself he could not stop smiling, his face strangely obscene with glee: the same glee that he had shown last year when he heard of the assassination attempt. “Out of respect for the dignity of diplomacy I have remained silent, but I accuse - ”

It was true, then. Marco had not quite believed it, even though the Rat had confessed. But the Jiardasian ambassador’s glee confirmed it. 

“You - ! You - ! You - !” the Beltrazan ambassador fumed, incoherent. 

“ - nay! Without proof I refrain from accusing! My love for the people and the country of Samavia has led me astray in my zeal to protect their esteemed royal family, the descendants of the great house of Fedorovitch - ” 

Of course the Jiardasian ambassador mentioned the Fedorovitch. If the Loristans died, then the kings of Jiardasia had the best claim to Samavia, through a Fedorovitch princess centuries ago.

A film of ice seemed to settle on Marco’s heart.

“I humbly offer an entire squadron of Jiardasia’s finest, at your service, your royal highness,” the Jiardasian ambassador finished. 

Marco said, with the quiet and commanding tone he had learned from Stefan Loristan, “Be silent.”

Silence, again. He turned back to the Rat, very still and cold. “You betrayed Samavia,” he said steadily. 

“Yes,” said the Rat, just as calmly. His clear gray eyes remained on Marco’s face, searching Marco’s eyes, and that steady gaze hurt Marco so much that he had to look away. How could the Rat’s eyes still look so pure and truthful when he was a traitor?

“Why?” asked Marco. The ice on his heart seemed to crack as he said it, and his voice went high at the end. 

And finally, _finally_ the Rat looked away from him. “They offered,” he said, and had to lick his lips before he continued, “so much money.” 

“Money,” said Marco, and his voice started to shake. He had not imagined that anyone could be so base as to betray years of friendship for mere money. 

“Money,” said the Rat, and a note of viciousness crept into his voice. “Masses of it. Piles of it, Marco.”

“You will address him as _Your Royal Highness_ , traitor,” thundered General Sapt. “You’re a shame to the uniform of Samavia.”

At this, the Rat’s head snapped up again, his cheeks flaming, but he didn’t answer General Sapt. “Your Royal Highness,” he said instead, almost spitting the words. “You don't even pay me.” 

Rage swelled in Marco’s chest. Perhaps they didn’t pay the Rat, but when had he wanted for anything? “I didn’t realize I had to buy your loyalty,” Marco said. His heart thudded in his chest. “I thought we were friends.” 

The Rat raised his eyes again, trying to catch Marco’s eyes. Marco, unwilling to look at him, turned from him sharply, taking a few steps away. “You’ve never been good at thinking,” said the Rat. 

Marco whirled around. He strode back to the Rat. His little-used ornamental dagger hissed as he drew it from its scabbard. 

The Rat’s face whitened again, but he didn’t try to flee or even flinch. “Go ahead,” he said. “Stab an unarmed man.” 

“I would never kill you without a proper trial,” Marco said. He grabbed the Rat’s prized medals, yanking on them hard enough that he nearly pulled the Rat off his feet. The Rat’s crutches shrieked against the floor. “But you’ve shamed Samavia. You shame those medals by wearing them.” And he dragged the dagger through the ribbons that attached the medals to the Rat’s coat. 

He stepped back, letting the medals fall to the floor. They chimed on the tiles like dropped coins. 

Marco dropped the dagger too and backed away from the Rat, almost tripping when his heel caught against the lowest step of the dais. He turned around, walking up to the platform but not taking his throne. “Take him away,” he said, back to the throne room - back to the Rat. “Take him to the dungeon. We will try him when King Stefan returns.” 

The guards’ hobnailed boots clattered on the floor as they moved to flank the Rat. 

“Mar - ” the Rat began, then cut stopped with a thump and a gasp, as if someone had hit him for insolence. 

Marco whirled. "None of that," he barked, glaring at the guards flanking the Rat. The one on the right hung his head guiltily. He looked almost comically tall, standing next to the Rat. "We do not hit prisoners in Samavia." 

"Yes, Your Highness," the guards said.

Marco began to turn away again, waving a hand to dismiss them, but the Rat tried again: "Your Highness," he said, and despite himself Marco could not ignore him. The Rat's crutches stuck out at odd angles, and his hands, clenched on their crossbars, had turned white from holding so hard. “Your Highness. Let me walk to the dungeon on my own power. You know I cannot run away.” 

“Do I?” Marco said, rage swelling in his throat. “You’ve lied about everything else.” And again he turned away. “Take him down,” he said, and wished he could close his ears against the clack of boots on the tile floor as the guards took the Rat’s arms and turned him around to march him out. Marco flinched at the crack, almost like a gunshot, of the Rat’s crutches clattering to the tiles. 

The guards walked far too fast for the Rat to keep pace. The tips of the Rat’s polished boots squeaked on the floor as the guards dragged him through the throne room.


	2. Why?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He began to pace the battered red Turkey carpet in front of the fire, as if he could outrun thoughts of the Rat, but the Rat’s presence seemed to permeate Marco’s room. His pencil marks mapping voyages on Marco’s globe. Little holes in the walls from the Rat’s early attempts at darts. Even the fire in the grate reminded Marco of all the times that he and the Rat had roasted chestnuts there.
> 
> The Rat, the Rat, the Rat! Everywhere in Marco's life. Why would he betray all that?

_Why_?

The word _why_ pounded in Marco’s head all evening, as he sat through an interminable state dinner. Silverware clinking against china, gold-rimmed crystal goblets tinkling together in toasts, a string quartet in the corner playing Beethoven: Marco’s head ached from the cacophony. 

“Everyone will understand if you do not attend the dinner,” General Sapt had told Marco. 

“But of course I must go,” Marco had replied, surprised. “It’s my duty to Samavia.” Mere personal devastation couldn’t interfere. 

Why would the Rat betray Samavia? He could not understand it. 

Marco wished that his father were there. His father would be able to explain why the Rat would betray them. Probably he could have stopped the Rat: he would have seen that the Rat was unhappy, and saved him from it. Because what other explanation could there be for the Rat’s betrayal? He must have been miserable, and Marco hadn’t noticed. Why else would he betray Samavia? It was impossible that he could have done it merely for money. 

Impossible. As if Marco could believe anything impossible now. His mouth twisted, and his fork slipped from his fingers and clattered on his plate. 

The buzzing conversation abruptly halted as all eyes turned to him, the Samavians sympathetic, the Jiardasian ambassador trying to conceal his glee behind his third glass of wine. 

Marco forced himself to take another bite, though he had to chew and chew and chew before it seemed possible to swallow. The Jiardasian ambassador, a few seats away, ate and ate and ate: plate after plate of roast boar, goblet upon goblet of Samavia’s best wine. 

Another _why_. Why was the Jiardasian ambassador so happy, when the Rat’s capture had foiled his plans to acquire the blueprint of the palace? 

Perhaps, all along, this had been the Jiardasian ambassador’s plan: not to use the blueprints for another assassination attempt, but to strike at the heart of the royal family by showing that one of their most loyal servants could be bought. 

But the Rat had never cared about money; Marco couldn’t believe he would betray Samavia for it, even for piles and piles of it. 

Most loyal. And that led to the final, the worst _why_ : why would the Rat betray _Marco_? 

He held that _why_ at bay through the dinner. But once Marco had left the light and the glitz and the chatter for his tower room, silent except for the crackling of the fire, and sat in his comfortable red armchair - then that question crowded in on him again, and he felt suddenly as tired as if he had spent the whole day riding through the mountains. His head ached and swam, as if he had drunk too much; but he had only had two glasses of wine. 

He had thought, he remembered suddenly, that he and the Rat would sit in front of the fire that evening, just like this, just like they usually did when Marco was in Melzarr. They would finish the chess game they had started last night, which sat on the side table beside Marco’s chair, and laugh over the misunderstanding that had led to the audience in the throne room. 

Marco’s gaze fell on the chessboard. For a moment, looking at the chess pieces casting their long jagged shadows, the afternoon’s audience seemed a mere sham, a nightmare. It couldn’t possibly have happened: the Rat would never betray Samavia, he could not be in prison, he would walk in at any moment, move three pieces, and announce, inevitably, “Checkmate.” 

He always beat Marco at chess. 

_You aren’t much good at thinking, Marco_. 

Marco’s jaw clenched. He began to pace the battered red Turkey carpet in front of the fire, as if he could outrun thoughts of the Rat, but the Rat’s presence seemed to permeate Marco’s room. His pencil marks mapping voyages on Marco’s globe. Little holes in the walls from the Rat’s early attempts at darts. Even the fire in the grate reminded Marco of all the times that he and the Rat had roasted chestnuts there. 

The Rat, the Rat, the Rat! Everywhere in Marco's life. Why would he betray all that? Marco’s pace speeded up, till he was almost running in a tight circuit around his room. He could not breathe; the walls tightened around him. He threw open his door and took the spiral staircase two steps at a time. 

Marco could not understand. If the Rat had been unhappy, why did he not ask Marco for help? He knew, he had to know, that the Loristans would give him anything. Marco would have given the Rat half the kingdom if he asked. 

No, the Rat had acted out of - Marco’s mind drew up short again, baffled; he could not imagine a motive. His boots rang on the stone floors as he strode through the old part of the palace, and though he did not notice it, courtiers drew up against the wall as he passed. 

“The wrath of a king,” one murmured, not disapproving. 

Marco marched unseeing through the palace. How could the Rat betray him? Had anger festered behind his smiling face for years? Anger at _what_? Marco slammed his heel into the floor so hard that it left a streak on the stone. 

And the Rat knew everything, had wormed his way into every confidence. Samavia had no secrets from the Rat. What if he decided to sell them? Samavia would never be safe as long as the Rat lived. Marco would have him shot - 

Marco stopped in the middle of the hall, as suddenly as if he had run into a wall. His father would be ashamed to know that Marco would even consider having someone shot without a trial. Even a traitor. Even a traitor who he had trusted more than - 

No! He could not allow that blinding rage to rise again. He was a prince: if he lost his temper he might cost innocent lives, even cause wars. 

He shook his head, forcing himself to breathe deep and look around, and was almost surprised to find himself in the portrait hall, under the hostile stares of hundreds of years of Maranovitch and Iarovitch kings. Many of the portraits were half-finished, the sitting cut short by assassination. 

Marco stood beneath the half-finished portrait of the last Maranovitch king. Michael Maranovitch, whose capricious cruelties had made him so hated that his own guards betrayed him to the Iarovitch assassins. 

Marco closed his eyes for a moment, letting the pain of the word pass through him. He opened his eyes again, looking steadily at Michael Maranovitch’s unfinished portrait, the head floating on a blank canvas. 

Had the Rat felt his hatred of Marco as justified as Maranovitch’s guards had thought theirs was? 

But that led him back to the puzzle of motivation. Marco had never been good at solving puzzles. 

But in any case, he realized, there was no need to try. The dungeons were below this part of the palace. Marco could go down and ask the Rat.


	3. In the Dungeon

The heavy dungeon door squeaked on its hinges as Marco pulled it open, and he coughed on the chill musty air that swirled out. Since Loristan had been crowned Ivor I, the dungeons had not been used; Michael Maranovitch, his predecessor, had been too fond of them, and Samavians still trembled at the name. 

Marco and the Rat had been down only once, soon after the coronation. They had gone into it laughing and excited, as boys do, only to grow quiet and hold their noses as they descended the stairs. 

The dungeons had smelled like latrines, undercut with the scent of metal and blood, and a faint tang that was almost like sweat, yet more unpleasant; and it was that last scent that forced Marco and the Rat to silence. And Lazarus had broken his usual silence to say gravely, “That’s the smell of fear.” 

It had upset Marco and the Rat so much that, though they had explored every nook and cranny and secret passage of the palace, they had never returned to the dungeon. And later, when even the Rat was not by, Marco had asked his father, “Why did you take us to that terrible place?”

It was the first time - the only time - he had questioned his father. 

“Because one day you will be king,” his father said. “I know you already know that injustice and cruelty are wrong; but I wanted you to see and to feel how terrible they can be.” 

The dungeon was much changed now. The scent of fear and blood had long ago faded away, replaced by the damp empty smell of abandoned places. A cold draft whistled around Marco’s ankles as he descended the spiral stair, and when he put a hand on the stone wall to steady himself, his palm came away wet and streaked with mildew. 

The dungeon itself was a labyrinth of passageways. But there was a trail of bare stone on the floor where they had dragged the Rat through the dust. Marco trained his electric torch on that trail and followed, not turning the light aside to look into the old empty cells or branching corridors. The darkness was oppressive enough without looking around. His boots joined the drip of water and the whistling drafts as the only sounds cutting through the dark silence. Occasionally a rat squeaked, and Marco thought he felt one patter over his boot. What did they eat in this abandoned place? 

He wondered if anyone had bothered to feed the Rat. 

A vague dread had begun to settle on Marco’s shoulders. A sudden guffaw made him jump, and he lifted his head from the trail in the dust and saw up ahead the flickering glow of lantern light - for most of Samavia still used lanterns, not electric torches. 

Marco hurried forward. A pair of guards rose hastily to their feet, scattering their game of cards in the dust as they saluted. But the beam of Marco’s torch moved irresistibly beyond them, searching for the Rat in his cell. “At ease,” he said, not even looking at the guards, but staring at the Rat. 

The Rat did not raise his head at the sound of Marco’s voice. He sat with his back against the wall, his twisted legs thrust out before him, his trousers filthy with dust and mildew from being dragged through the dungeon. Someone must have taken his military coat - and the Rat had been so proud to receive it, Marco remembered, and felt it like a little twist of a knife. Drips of dirty water and rust from his manacles streaked the Rat’s once-white shirt. The manacles clanked as the Rat half-lifted his hands, then let them drop in his lap again. The chain clattered. 

Manacles. Marco stared at them, the heavy cuffs on the Rat’s powerful arms, the thick twisted chains that rose into the shadows. Marco had to raise his torch to see the chains attached to a staple high in the wall. 

The Rat raised his head to follow the direction of the light, then let his head drop again, staring into his lap with the ferocious frown that Marco had always considered the Rat’s thinking face. Had he never noticed before how angry that face looked? Had it never occurred to him that the Rat might feel that anger toward _him_? 

He had to force himself to take the last few steps to stand beside the bars. The guards shifted uneasily. “Highness - ” one of them murmured, running an anxious hand through his dark hair. 

“It’s all right,” said Marco, giving him a smile. The guard looked flustered, rocking on his heels and glancing a little helplessly at the other guard, an easy blond man who leaned against the wall. “He’s in chains; what can he do to me?” 

The guards relaxed. Marco wrapped his hands around the cold iron bars. The metal was harsh against his skin. “Rat,” he said. 

The Rat did not lift his head. “Your Highness,” he said, and his formality infuriated Marco: as if the Rat had been a mere retainer, and his betrayal merely professional. 

“Call me Marco,” Marco said. 

The Rat lifted his head still further. His hunchback forced him to cock it at an odd angle to look Marco in the eye, and it gave the Rat an odd wistful look that irritated Marco further. “Can I still call you that?”

And suddenly Marco just felt tired. “What else could you call me?” he asked. “Clearly I’m not your prince anymore.” 

The Rat did not reply for a long while. He continued to look at Marco, his fierce frown on his face, and said, “Why are you here?” 

“I wanted to ask why you did it,” Marco said. 

“I told you in the throne room,” said the Rat. His rusty chains squeaked and shrieked as they moved. “Masses upon masses of money.” 

“I just can’t believe it,” Marco said flatly. 

The Rat looked at him again, blinking against the electric glare of the torch full in his face. In that bright light, his gray eyes seemed curiously transparent. “Enough to fill a bathtub with it,” he said, and his voice was almost goading. “I’ll wash away my sins in gold.”

Marco could only gape. “Like Judas washed himself with his thirty pieces of silver?” 

“Judas should have been more ambitious.”

Marco let go of the cell bars. He clasped his hands behind his back to stop their trembling. “I can’t believe,” he said, and his voice almost trembled too, “I can’t believe you did it for nothing but money.” 

The Rat snorted. “People will do anything for money.” 

“Maybe most people would; but _you_ wouldn’t,” Marco said. When the Rat didn’t reply, Marco added, “It’s not worth as much as friendship and loyalty and - ”

“Says someone who has never been poor a day in his life,” interrupted the Rat. 

“I grew up poor!” Marco replied. 

The Rat’s eyes widened, and his whole face tensed, the flesh pressing against the bone so he bore for a moment a strange awful resemblance to a skeleton. “Poor!” he said. “Marco, you were never poor, only compared to this palace were you ever _poor_. You always had a roof over your head, and a _nice_ roof, not some grotty room with cockroaches and a leak in the corner, and there would always be food the next day even if it _was_ only bread and water, and you were never sent out to beg for it, because people will give more money to a pathetic little cripple than an obvious drunkard!” 

The Rat began to cough. His chains clanked as he raised a hand to his mouth, coughing and coughing, and Marco scrambled at his pockets for a handkerchief. He thrust it through the bars, and held it there, increasingly impatient, until he realized that of course the Rat could not come and get it. He could have scooted on his hands, but his chains wouldn’t stretch that far. 

The gesture seemed to destroy the Rat’s self-control. “You’re so stupid,” he said, his face twisting in rage. “You’re so stupid, so _stupid_ , you can never see anything but what’s right in front of you, what’s absolutely obvious!” 

Marco felt cold. “You’ve always felt this way?” 

“Yes!” the Rat cried, and he began to cough again. He lifted his hands to his mouth, as if he could thrust his weakness away or at least hide it.

“And you never told me,” Marco said. 

“Obviously not,” said the Rat, with an attempt at a sneer, but he could not hold it because he was coughing so badly. He turned his face against his shoulder to muffle the sound. 

“Why not?” Marco said, and his voice did not seem to come from him, but from somewhere far away and very cold. “We would have paid you, if that was all you wanted.”

The Rat shook his head, but he could not speak for coughing. 

“It was cowardly,” Marco said. “Keeping secrets always is.” 

The Rat’s coughing fit subsided. He leaned against the wall, his breath ragged and rasping in his throat. “I’m sorry,” the Rat said, and he - was he crying? “I’m so sorry. Marco...”

He was crying. Marco could hear the tears in the rustiness of the Rat’s voice, and he stood paralyzed, a tightness at the back of his own throat. The Rat seemed sincere; but then he had always seemed so sincere to Marco. 

In any case, it didn’t matter. Marco’s duty to Samavia must come first. Marco might want to forgive the Rat, but a country could not lightly forgive treason. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Marco said, almost gently. 

“I know,” said the Rat. He rubbed spittle off his mouth with his filthy sleeve. 

Marco folded up his handkerchief, tucking one end under so it would stay together, and tossed it to the Rat. It landed in his lap. 

Marco did not pause to see give the Rat a chance to hurl it back at him. As soon as he had thrown it, he walked away. His boot heels clicked on the cold stone floor. 

***

Marco did not go to bed that night. He sat in his chair, staring into the flames, unthinking, unfeeling, with a cold sick numbness in his stomach, as the church bells rang the hour. Two o’clock; three o’clock; four o’clock. 

He did not think he would ever sleep again, but he must have, because he missed five o’clock; and the next thing he knew, the soft light of dawn poured through his eastern windows, and someone was knocking at his door. 

The Rat! Marco must be late for riding practice! Marco, still half-awake, started out of his chair, then stopped in the middle of the room as his memory came crashing back. It knocked the breath out of him, like a punch to the stomach. 

The knocking continued. “Your Highness?” the knocker said, and Marco almost didn’t recognize General Sapt’s voice, it was so strained. 

Marco opened the door. The general stood on his threshold, hat in hand, his face ashy beneath his unkempt whiskers. A trickle of unease seeped down Marco’s back. “General - ” he began. 

But General Sapt, usually almost as punctilious as Lazarus about protocol, interrupted. “Your Highness, it’s Captain Ratcliffe,” he said, and stopped, as if searching for breath. 

Marco’s whole world went still. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears, and through it, with crystalline precision, the chirping of the sparrows, the gardener raking fallen leaves off the palace lawn, the caws of crows. “What?” Marco said, and he heard that too as if from far away. 

“He’s escaped, Your Highness.”


	4. If

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco meets with his councilors to argue about how to deal with the Rat's escape.

“He’s escaped, Your Highness,” General Sapt said. For a moment Marco did not seem to feel anything, and then he felt so relieved that he touched the doorjamb to steady himself. 

He realized, then, that he had thought the Rat must be dead, though why he thought so, he could not have said. It was simply that the Rat’s death was the only thing that could be worse than everything that had already happened: it had seemed like the next logical step. 

“Your Highness,” said General Sapt.

Marco’s attention snapped back to the present. “How did he escape?” he asked. “He was chained the wall, without his crutches, and there were guards...” 

General Sapt’s heavy face was grim. “The guards are dead,” he said, and that was another blow in Marco’s stomach. Their poor parents - he would write to them. No, if they lived in Melzarr he must visit. The Rat, party to murder on top of everything else. How could Marco have so deceived himself about the Rat’s character?

“Those damned Jiardasians - begging your pardon, Your Highness,” General Sapt said. “They must have helped him.”

The Jiardasians would not help the Rat out of gratitude: they must still have some use for him. Yet they already had the castle blueprint. What more could they want from him? 

But Marco’s brain, which had seemed so befogged by confusion for these last few days, was suddenly sharp and clear. He would have to figure out their motives later, but for now, he must focus on the immediate logistical puzzle: recapturing the Rat. “You have guards at all Melzarr’s gates, of course, and scouring the city?”

“Yes, of course. At the palace gates also, Your Highness.” 

“The railway station is under guard - not just the passenger trains but the freight,” said Marco. 

“Yes, Your Highness. And I’ve summoned your councilors for an emergency meeting in the Star Room.”

Marco shut the door behind him and strode down the hall, straightening his coat as he went. Under the circumstances, no one could chide him for a wrinkled shirt. “And you’ve telegraphed all the border posts?” Marco asked General Sapt. 

“I’ll do it right away, Your Highness,” General Sapt said, panting a little, because he had almost to run to keep up with Marco. Marco had not realized his own strides were so long. Usually he walked more slowly to accommodate the Rat. 

“And while you’re sending that telegram,” said Marco, and he felt a second flood of relief, “send one to the king as well. Given the circumstances, I think it is best that he return to Samavia.”

***

Perhaps it was only the knowledge that his father would return soon - for Marco, in the back of his mind, retained his boyhood belief that Stefan Loristan could make everything all right - but Marco felt better and more clear-headed than he had since the General Sapt had laid out the evidence of the Rat’s treachery. To be active, to be _doing_ something, was a thousand times easier than to sit and wonder at the Rat’s betrayal. 

It seemed he was alone in this feeling. Jowly General Sapt simply continued to scowl, and Marco’s other three councilors - old Tamboran of the exchequer, young Rudolf who looked rather like the Apollo Belvidere, and silent glowering Radovitch - looked pale and haunted, as if they would like very much to crawl under the bedclothes and hide there. 

Marco recalled a couplet from Kipling’s “If”: _If you can keep your head when all about you/are losing theirs..._

His father had insisted he learn it by heart. “It’s a bit much to ask of a man,” he had said. “But a king must be more than a man, Marco. He is not just himself, but also the state.” 

“Councilors,” said Marco, his voice loud and calm; and the councilor’s alarmed murmurs quieted in the face of his calm. “It seems Captain Ratcliffe has escaped.” 

The murmur rose again. General Sapt leaned forward, slamming a hand on the table with a loud smack that against silenced the councilors. “Whole town’s in an uproar,” he said. “We’ll have to cancel this afternoon’s public audience.”

“But we can’t,” said Marco. 

General Sapt gave Marco a patient look, as if he were a child who did not understand the situation, and not acting regent in his father’s absence. “Ratcliffe and his Jiardasian handlers might still be in Melzarr,” he said. “What if they sneak into the public audience to get a crack at you? Can’t take the chance with your safety, Your Highness.”

General Sapt spoke so firmly that Marco was momentarily cowed. General Sapt had so much more experience than Marco did: perhaps he was right that the audience ought to be canceled. 

But looking down, Marco saw his father’s signet ring on his hand. Loristan considered these open audiences essential to keeping the Samavians’ trust: the fact that they had a monthly audience open to all showed that the Loristans, unlike the Maranovitch or the Iarovitch, meant to rule for the people and not their own personal gain. 

“I hardly think they would have helped the Rat escape if that were their plan,” Marco said. “All the guards knew the Rat’s face, and even if they hid that, they could hardly hide his hunchback or his crutches. Double the guards on the throne room door if you must; it will make the throne room more impressive, anyway. But some peasants have walked miles down mountainsides to have an audience. What will they think if they find us cowering like rabbits in a burrow?”

The councilors were silent for a moment. But then old Tamboran said, his old voice quavering, “But Your Highness, we cannot let you put yourself in danger.” The other councilors nodded. 

_If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you_ \- another line from the Kipling poem. Marco said, “The throne room is one of the safest rooms in the palace. It’s one of the few with no secret passageways.” He and the Rat had mapped out the passageways for Marco’s father.

And Marco knew the answer to his earlier question, _what use did the Jiardasians have for the Rat now_? What could be more useful than knowledge of all the secret passageways in the palace? 

“They’re still in the palace,” Marco murmured. 

“Your Highness?” The councilors looked at him, perplexed. 

“It would be difficult for the Jiardasians to help Captain Ratcliffe escape,” said Marco, thinking it through as he spoke. “And he wouldn’t be helpful for any ordinary assassination attempt, now that we know that he’s a traitor.” The word caught in his throat like a fish bone, and he had to clear it twice before he went on. “But he knows the palace’s secret passages better than anyone. They must need that knowledge.”

The Rat had not merely betrayed Samavia by selling plans. “They’re going to try another assassination attempt,” said Marco. “From inside the palace.” 

With the Rat’s help. The Rat hated Marco enough to want him dead. The world seemed to go gray and silent and far away. 

_If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew/To serve your turn long after they are gone,/And so hold on when there is nothing in you/Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’_

The quotation drew Marco’s mind back to earth as if it were an anchor, and he became aware that his hands were clenched on the edge of the table so tightly that his father’s signet ring dug into his flesh. 

He had only been gone a second, it seemed, because the councilors’ faces still reflected their shock. “But it can’t be,” whispered Tamboran; and, “Never should have trusted a hunchback,” muttered Rudolf; but as usual, General Sapt’s steadily rising voice swiftly drowned out the others. 

“We’ll catch that goddamned foreigner,” General Sapt said, so overcome by fury that curses rolled off his tongue as if he were speaking to his troops and not his prince. “Bastard owes everything to us, and now he dares to betray us, when he ought to be thankful to lick your boots clean!”

Marco’s heart, which he had thought all wrung out, twisted as he remembered how the Rat had once delighted in blacking Loristan’s boots. 

“English all around,” General Sapt continued, his voice rising to a shout. “Just ask the Boers! The English have no sense of loyalty to anyone but their own damn selves - ”

“General,” said Tamboran, his old voice quavering with reproach, and General Sapt snapped back to himself. His ruddy face flushed redder.

“Apologies,” he said. “Carried away. But you’ll be happy to know, Your Highness, I have ordered the Samavian Guard to shoot him on sight,” he said. 

Marco was stunned. Execution without trial? “Then you must rescind those orders at once!” 

“That’ll only feed the rumors that you’ve helped him escape,” interrupted General Sapt. 

“There are rumors that I helped him escape?” asked Marco, stunned again. He looked at his other councilors, but they looked puzzled too. 

Of course, they did not have the whole guard to act as ears for them, as General Sapt did. “Everyone knows,” General Sapt said, “that Captain Ratcliffe had far too much influence with you. We’ve arrested the worst rumor-mongers, but...” 

Marco’s temper, slow-kindling though it was, flared. Loristan would never order anyone shot without trial; he would never have countenanced arrests for spreading rumors. “General Sapt,” he said, “You must please release the rumor-mongers at once, and inform your men not to waste time quashing rumors. Captain Ratcliffe’s prompt re-arrest is the only thing that will stop such rumors, and in any case, it is not the business of the Samavian Guard to stop people from talking.”

“Your Highness,” said General Sapt. He spoke with the same patronizing tone he had used earlier - the same patronizing tone, indeed, with which he had pointed out that the Rat was a foreigner, at the council meeting that had ended with the Rat’s arrest. “In a strong country like England, maybe they can get away with being lax like that. But we’ve got enemies at our throat and enemies inside our borders still, and the only way to keep the throne and the rule of law is - ”

“The rule of law!” Marco shouted, his voice drowning General Sapt’s. “It isn’t rumor-mongers who disrespect the rule of law, General, but those who throw them in prison without trial. In the name of my father I tell you that punishing people for rumors is not only a foolish waste of the Guard’s time, but more importantly, both illegal and wrong. It flies in the face of the principles on which my father took the throne. As does ordering a man to be shot on sight, without trial! I am glad to suffer any rumor if it might save an innocent subject who resembles Captain Ratcliffe from being shot by a nervous guardsman!” 

Chairs scraped on the tiled floor as the councilors stood up. Marco looked at them, baffled, before realizing that he had risen to his feet at the end of his speech. He pressed both his hands to the table. “You are dismissed, General Sapt,” he said. “I am sure it is only your zeal to protect me that has led you astray. Please relay my orders to your guards post haste. I will see you at the audience later this morning.”

General Sapt did not move. His face was taut and gray, as it should be after a reprimand by his sovereign, but his nostrils flared. 

“You are _dismissed_ ,” Marco repeated. 

“Your Highness,” General Sapt said. He gave Marco a very correct salute and clicked the heels of his polished boots. Those heels struck hard on the tiles as he left.


	5. Greater Love Hath No Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An assassination is attempted.

The public audience began after lunch, and it went well. Marco attended to disputes about cattle and land boundaries and requests for his or his father’s blessing at the openings of new schools, a new hospital, even a new tavern; and it absorbed him so well that he was surprised, when at last the audiences were over and he rose from his throne, to realize that he had been sitting on high alert the whole time, as if an assassin might dash into the throne room at any moment. His back ached abominably. 

He would have liked to go for a ride afterward, but of course that was impossible with the Rat at large. He took guards instead - four of them, at the general insistence of his council - and headed back to his tower room, taking a circuitous route through the palace instead of his normal path, which went past half a dozen secret passages. General Sapt had ordered the Guard check all the secret passages that Marco could remember, but it had been ages since he and the Rat had explored them.

Besides, the Rat would almost certainly win a cat-and-mouse game with the guard in the palace passageways. 

This route took him past only one, a passage hidden among the buttresses up in the chapel. 

Chapel it was called, but it was more like a cathedral built into the palace, with flying buttresses that hid the secret room Marco and the Rat had found. They had dropped pennies to hear them ring on the stone far below, loud in that quiet room, all sound muffled by the faded tapestries that hung between jewel-toned windows illustrating the passion of Christ. _Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends:_ that was written in gold beneath one of the windows.

How soon could his father be back? The train service in Samavia still was not good; the Iarovitch brigade had torn up some of the track during their last desperate attack on Melzarr. Probably not till the evening, then. 

They approached the chapel. “The secret passage is above the choir loft, to the left,” said Marco. “General Sapt had it checked, but keep your eyes open anyway.” 

Hopefully they would have caught the Rat by the time Loristan returned. The Rat - 

It was as if his musings had summoned the voice. “Marco!” 

_Was that_ \- 

A scream, a gunshot crack, shattering glass. One guard tackled Marco, and he hit hard against the floor. A hail of stained glass, red and blue and pink. Beautiful. A horrid wet splat, and across the chapel Marco saw a heap, which had not been there before, with angles that were all wrong for arms and legs and a neck. 

_Was that -_

“Marco, _get down_ ,” yelled the Rat, and Marco’s heart beat again. The Rat was clinging to a tapestry high on the chapel wall - only he was on the wrong side of the chapel, far from the secret passage. “There’s more of - ”

Another gunshot, louder, and the Rat’s voice cut off in a cry. Red blossomed on his shoulder, and he fell, down, down - it seemed to take forever, and yet it was not long enough for Marco to take more than a half step forward. 

The Rat hit the assassin’s body and rolled off, curled in on himself. Damn the Jiardasians, damn them, shooting the Rat for saving Marco. Marco started forward.

“Your Highness, stay back till we’ve finished him!” protested one of the guards. Marco stumbled, and suddenly smelled the thick scent of burnt gunpowder, and realized: it was not the Jiardasians, but his own guards who had shot the Rat. 

“No!” Marco shouted, and flung himself in front of the Rat, arms spread wide so his guards could not shoot without shooting him. 

“Marco! Get down!” cried the Rat. 

But it was too late. Marco seemed to be staring directly down the barrel of a gun; and then one of the other guards knocked into the man with the gun, and the shot went wide, ricocheting off the wall. 

The guard’s face was ghostly white. His legs seemed to give way: he stumbled and almost fell. “I could have killed you!” he gasped. 

“You would have killed Captain Ratcliffe!” Marco roared. He took the last few steps toward the Rat, taking off his coat to press the wool against the bleeding wound in the Rat’s shoulder. Not mortal. If they stopped the bleeding in time. 

“Marco - ” said the Rat, his hand pressing against Marco’s on the coat over the wound. 

Marco’s feelings were in too much tumult to speak to him. Instead, he shouted at the guards. “He just saved my life! _What were you thinking_?”

All four guards were very still and pale. One of them, short and skinny and weak-chinned, cleared his throat and said, “O-orders, Your Highness, was to shoot - ”

Sapt. _Sapt_. “I’m changing your orders,” said Marco, and pointed at the two biggest guards. “You two, get Captain Ratcliffe to the infirmary.” They did not move. Marco snapped his fingers, which was rude, and they hastened over, taking the Rat out from under Marco’s hands. Marco’s palms were red and sticky with blood. His gorge rose. “Make sure,” Marco said, swallowing against the sickness in his throat, “make sure he’s given the best possible care, as befits a man who saved the prince’s life.” 

The larger guard, a bear of a man, lifted the Rat in his arms as gently as a child. 

“Marco!” shouted the Rat, twisting to look back over the man’s shoulder. 

But Marco turned his face away, and soon the Rat was gone. 

Marco wiped his bloody hands on his trousers and stood, and slipped in the Rat’s blood and almost fell. One of the two remaining, the weak-chinned man who had spoken, hurried to his side to steady him. “What do you want of us, sir?” 

“Tell me again,” said Marco, staring at the Rat’s blood at his feet. “What orders did General Sapt give you regarding Captain Ratcliffe?”

The guards heard the grimness in Marco’s voice, and glanced at each other before they answered. General Sapt’s men loved him: from an old noble family in the mountains, blue-blooded but as poor as they come; plainspoken and courageous. He led from the front. 

Loristan had picked General Sapt himself, to put down the last Iarovitch revolt. The Rat had admired him, too. 

The weak-chinned guard cleared his throat, and said. “Shoot the bastard if we get the chance, Highness, is what General Sapt said. Beg pardon.” 

Probably his exact words, too. “And when did you last see the General?” he asked. _Let it be before the council meeting - let this all be a mistake_ \- 

“Lunch mess, highness.” After the council meeting. A stone seemed to settle in Marco’s stomach. “He always eats with us - sits at the high table, of course, being a noble - but he eats with us, and the same food too.”

Marco had admired him too. 

And General Sapt had disobeyed Marco’s orders. 

It was at that moment that General Sapt and the guards burst into the chapel. 

They drew up short, gaping at Marco, his two guards, the broken heap of assassin forgotten by their feet. General Sapt continued forward, almost staggering, and fell to one knee. He took Marco’s hand, heedless of the traces of the Rat’s blood, and kissed Marco’s signet ring. “Your Highness!” cried General Sapt, looking up at Marco with tears in his eyes. “Praise God, you’re all right!”

Marco stared down at him. “What are you talking about?” he asked. 

General Sapt rose heavily from his knees. “We heard the shots; we thought you must’ve been - we checked the chapel, Your Highness! But that damn Rat must’ve known - ”

How dare he use the nickname? “Captain Ratcliffe, you mean?” Marco snapped. 

General Sapt stilled. In the sudden silence Marco could hear the guards’ boots creaking as they shifted, anxious, from foot to foot, and the whisper of petticoats behind: servants filtering in. “Yes, of course. Carried away in the heat of the moment, I guess. Captain Ratcliffe, I meant, must’ve - ”

“Captain Ratcliffe,” Marco said crisply, “must have had a change of heart, because he is the reason I am still alive. He pushed the Jiardasian assassin to his death. And do you know how your men rewarded him for saving my life, General Sapt?” 

The general’s face became as still as wax. “I hope,” he said, “they gave him the treatment traitors deserve.” 

“Then you will be pleased to know,” said Marco, and he pitched his voice louder, for a crowd was gathering: more guards and servants, and old Tamboran chewing on the ends of his long mustache. “You will be pleased to know,” he repeated, “that your guards shot the man who saved my life. But I don’t blame _them_ ,” said Marco. 

“Nor should you,” said the general. His lips were stretched white. “They acted on my orders - and they acted right!” 

“An order that I specifically ordered _you_ to rescind this morning - an order that you had ample opportunity to fulfill when you ate with your men at lunch mess. I, sir, am acting king here; I _am_ Samavia. To disobey my orders - in order to institute a cruel and barbaric order of your own - sir, you’ve shamed your uniform and your regiment. You have brought shame upon Samavia today.” 

For a moment, he thought General Sapt meant to defy him, and for all that he was heir to the Lost Prince, Marco was not sure that General Sapt’s own hand-picked Guard would remain loyal to Marco if General Sapt chose to do so. The General puffed up, the way he did before he bawled out a recruit caught sleeping on guard. Marco clenched his teeth and looked at Sapt steadily, and hoped it did not show that he was shaking inside. 

And then General Sapt seemed to sag, like a balloon losing air. He was too tall to look small, but he seemed suddenly old, his grizzled hair a sign of feebleness rather than power. “You are right,” he said, and his head drooped. “You are right.”

He looked desolate. Marco felt a spark of sorrow for him: but he was still so angry that it flared into scornful pity. “Go back to your house,” he said. “My father and I will decide what is to be done about you. Guards - a few of you, escort him.” 

And General Sapt, flanked by guards, left: a hunched old man, moving through a crowd that parted for him. Like the Red Sea for Moses, Marco thought; except it was not like that at all: more as though they were moving away from a leper.

The crowd moved together again in his wake, as if General Sapt had been no more than a ripple on a pond. Their boots creaked, petticoats whispered, and soon voices whispered too, and they all looked at Marco. 

And Marco - who had held himself together through the Rat’s betrayal and escape and General Sapt’s defiance, who had not panicked under gunfire, felt helpless almost to the point of panic under their eyes. What could he say to them?

Old Tamboran shuffled forward, the carpet slippers he wore for his bunions brushing against the stone floor. He seemed to fall, and Marco lunged forward to catch him; but he was only kneeling, and took Marco’s outstretched right hand between his knobbled fingers. 

“Don’t plead for him, Tamboran,” said Marco. 

“I don’t mean to,” said Tamboran, still grasping Marco’s hand. He kissed the signet ring, as Sapt had done. “You behaved as a true son of Samavia today, and I wish only to renew my vows to the future king of the glorious country of Samavia.”

“Samavia,” said Marco.

“Samavia,” agreed Tamboran, and kissed Marco’s ring again. 

“Samavia!” shouted Marco, tossed his hat in the air with his free hand; and “Samavia!” echoed the crowd, and flung their servants’ kerchiefs and guards’ stiff-brimmed hats toward the vaulted chapel roof. They surged forward, kneeling, holding out their hands toward Marco, grasping Marco’s hand and trying to snatch that hand from each other to kiss the ring. Their voices echoed among the chapel vaults. 

“To Samavia! Samavia! Samavia!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand there will be an extra chapter this week - or rather a chapter posted early - on Thursday. Stay tuned!


	6. In the Infirmary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco visits the Rat in the infirmary.

Marco sat in a red brocade armchair in his tower room, staring at the embers of his fire. He ought to add another log, he knew, for the room was growing cold, but he could not seem to stir himself from his chair. The assassin was in custody, the Jiardassian embassy under the guard of a company of dragoons, and the Rat -

After dismissing General Sapt - after his councilors and his guards had gathered round to kiss his father’s ring and renew their allegiance to Samavia - and Marco felt tears prick his eyes at the memory - Marco had gone to the infirmary to check on the Rat. They had him under anaesthesia by then, so they could operate. A bleeder, but all in all a minor wound, they said. The Rat would live. The arm would be strong again. 

Marco would still have to put him on trial for treason. 

His stoicism was failing him. He pressed his fingertips against his forehead, as if that could push the headache back. 

A spark snapped off the crumbling log in the fire. It danced across the red Turkey carpet, and Marco smothered it with his boot. He ought to change his boots for slippers, at least. 

He did not move. 

A scuffle at the door roused Marco from his stupor. “Who is it?” he called. 

“Just a nurse,” the guard called back. “Nothing important; she’s just - ”

“It is important!” the nurse shouted. “It’s about Captain - _unhand me, sir!_ \- Ratcliffe, and - ”

Marco threw open the door. “Stand down,” he told the guards, who stepped smartly away from the tall young woman whom they were attempting to restrain. “What about Captain Ratcliffe, Miss?” 

She dropped a curtsy. Her thin hands trembled on her striped skirt, but her voice was clear and steady as she said, “Begging your pardon, your highness, but I’ve got my duty as a nurse just as much as you’ve got yours as a prince, and I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t make every effort to get you to go down and see him. Ever since he’s woke up, he won’t sleep, he won’t lie still, he’s like to fret himself to death insisting he’s got to talk to you, sir, and if you don’t go down I don’t know that we can help him!” 

Marco stared at the nurse. She dropped another curtsey. “Begging your pardon,” she said again. “But I had to say it. I hope I haven’t taken a liberty, your highness.” 

Marco took her hand. “You have; but bless you for it,” he said fervently, and kissed her knuckles. Her words had made his duty clear, and at last, at last his duty and his desire coincided: he must go see the Rat. “Please show me down to him.”

***

When Marco entered the infirmary, the guards straightened and saluted. Marco saluted back but did not slow down, marching down the infirmary to the Rat’s door. He knew it was the Rat’s because two more guards stood at it. They would not take the chance that the Jiardasians might try to kill the last remaining witness to their assassination attempts. 

These guards also saluted as Marco walked back, but this time, Marco was so distracted he didn’t even see. He thrust open the Rat’s door and then stopped, uncertain, in the doorway. 

The Rat’s eyes were closed. He looked strangely small under the crisp sheets; Marco always forgot that the Rat was shorter than he was, because the Rat’s thoughts and ideas always seemed so large. But now he looked pallid and - deathlike - 

But before Marco had even quite thought his sudden fear ( _had the Jiardasians gotten him, after all?_ ) the Rat’s eyes opened. He hadn’t been asleep at all, only resting; his eyes were clear, and they focused at once on Marco. 

“Marco!” he said, and tried to sit up; and Marco strode across the little room and put his right hand on the Rat’s shoulder to stop him from exerting himself. 

“The nurse says you won’t sleep,” said Marco. 

“I can’t,” the Rat said earnestly. He reached up, clasping Marco’s hand in his. His grip, usually so strong because his arms were also his legs, was weak as a child’s. “I have to talk to you. Marco - ”

He shifted, perhaps to get a better grip on Marco’s hand, and jostled his shoulder somehow. He did not let out a sound; but he stopped speaking as if someone had chopped off the end of a sentence with a knife, and what little blood was in his face drained from it. 

Marco hesitated, then squeezed the Rat’s clammy hand and sat on the edge of the bed. He was still angry at the Rat; but his anger had lost its bitterness, now that the Rat had repented of his betrayal and saved Marco’s life. “I still love you,” Marco said. He was half-sorry he’d said it, because surely the Rat did not deserve it. But it was true; and when the Rat slowly let out a breath, some of the pain smoothing out of his face, Marco was glad he had said it. “So please go to sleep so your wound will heal.” 

“Yes,” said the Rat. But he didn’t settle down or let go of Marco’s hand. His grip was so weak that Marco did not realize for a while that the Rat was trying to draw Marco’s hand to his lips: to kiss the royal signet ring. 

If it had been only a whim of the Rat’s, Marco would have done anything to soothe him in this state. But kissing the royal signet ring was an honor that the Rat had forfeited, and Marco could not let him do it. “Rat - ” Marco said. “You saved my life. And that will reduce your sentence, I hope. But you still betrayed me; you are no longer - you can never again be a servant of Samavia.” 

“But I am!” insisted the Rat, and with more strength than Marco had thought he had, tried again to drag Marco’s hand to his lips. “Ask your father - ask General Sapt - it was a plan - all part of the plan!” 

“Plan?” said Marco, baffled. 

“Yes, Marco, you ass, a plan!” cried the Rat, and he fell back against his pillows, panting. “They would have cut me to pieces if they thought I hadn’t really betrayed you, so it’s good that you believed, but - how _could_ you believe I would betray you, Marco, how could you?” 

“But you confessed,” Marco protested. 

“Well of course,” said the Rat. “I could hardly do otherwise right in front of the Jiardasian ambassador, now could I? That must be why he set up such an obvious meeting, to guarantee I would get caught so he could make sure I really was a traitor.”

“But you weren’t,” said Marco, just to be sure. “A traitor. You weren’t.” 

“Of course not!” said the Rat.

It was all too much: over the last few days Marco had been betrayed and betrayed again, and now it seemed that the first betrayal had not happened. His mind could follow these twists and turns, but his feelings could not catch up. “You sounded so sincere in the dungeons,” Marco said. “When you said...about being poor...”

“In case one of the guards was working for the Jiardasians,” said the Rat. “Or talked to someone who was. Or...” Suddenly he turned his head away from Marco. “They killed them, you know,” he said. "The guards. I said we should just lock them up, but - " The Rat gave his head a little shake, and said, looking at Marco, "They killed them." 

Probably in front of the Rat. Marco's throat ached with pity. He squeezed the Rat's hand. 

"The plan wasn't supposed to go like that," said the Rat. "Your father and General Sapt thought that - ”

“General Sapt knew about the plan?” Marco interrupted.

“Yes, he thought it was brilliant,” said the Rat, and his mouth, pale from blood-loss, curved up at the corners. With a touch of his old pride, he continued “I thought it up. When I presented it to them, General Sapt said, ‘We’ll smoke the Jiardasians out like hornets.’ He - ”

“But that’s impossible,” interrupted Marco. “General Sapt couldn’t have - he would have - ” Marco had dropped the Rat’s hand and paced the little room, an unnecessary movement so unlike him that the Rat watched him anxiously. 

“Of course he didn’t tell you,” said the Rat. “You can’t act for beans, Marco, and the whole thing would have gone to blazes if you - ”

A traitorous English bastard, General Sapt had called the Rat. _Everyone knows he has too much influence with you_ , he had said. 

And all along, General Sapt had known that the Rat was not a traitor - 

“He ordered - ” Marco began, anguished; but a look at the Rat’s pained, wheyish face stopped him. The Rat needed to sleep, not to stay up all night fretting about General Sapt's betrayal. Marco would have to tell him later. 

“General Sapt didn’t order me to do anything,” said the Rat, who had misunderstood Marco’s cut-off sentence. “I volunteered. So we could catch the Jiardasian assassins properly this time, and maybe they’ll stop trying to kill you. You know I would do anything for you and Loristan - for Samavia,” said the Rat. He tugged on Marco’s hand, and Marco let him pull it to his lips. The Rat kissed the signet ring twice, then rested his cheek against Marco’s hand. “You’ll stay?” said the Rat. 

“I am acting king,” Marco reminded him. “My time is not my own.”

The Rat squeezed his eyes closed. “You’ll stay till you have to go?”

“Yes,” said Marco, and took the Rat’s hand, sitting again at the edge of the bed. “I’ll stay till I have to go.”


	7. The Duties of Kings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loristan explains it all. And it is kind of depressing.

“Your Highness.”

The whisper woke Marco. He straightened with a jolt and almost fell from his seat on the edge of the Rat’s bed. 

“Your Highness?” the soft voice said again. 

“Yes?” he whispered, turning. 

It was the nurse - the one who had insisted he must come down and see the Rat. He felt a rush of affection at the sight of her. If only Samavia had bathtubs of gold to spare, he would happily have given her one for that service. 

She gave him another curtsey and gestured for him to leave the room. Marco gently disentangled his hand from the Rat’s. He stood, slowly so the movement would not jostle the Rat awake, and tiptoed out of the room. 

And there, his hands clasped behind his back, talking softly to a wakeful injured soldier, was Stefan Loristan. 

Loristan was here. He would make everything all right; he would explain to everyone about the Rat; he would sort out General Sapt. “Father,” said Marco, and his father crossed the room in three strides. He put a hand on Marco’s shoulder, and it was so comforting that Marco wanted to lean into his father’s shoulder and simply relax, as if he were a little boy tired from a too-long day, and Loristan could carry him home.

But he was eighteen, and much too old for that. “How was your trip to Germany?” Marco asked. 

“Kaiser Wilhelm was charming, as always,” said Loristan. He pressed his hand against Marco’s shoulder, drawing him away from the occupied beds to a window recess where they would not be overheard. “But I’m glad to be home. Why didn’t you send for me sooner?” 

He sounded curious, not accusing. “I...” Marco began, and stopped, staring through the wavering glass at the dark starless mass of mountain and cloudy sky. He did not know why. “You left me as acting king - ” 

He went to take off the signet ring, and found that he could not grip it properly: his hand was shaking. He stared at it. Why shake now, when he had been solid as a stone during the assassination, while arresting Sapt, even while confronting the Rat? “I needed to know that I could handle the worst things. For when I’m king,” Marco said. 

Loristan’s hands closed over Marco’s, and the warmth of the touch brought Marco back to the moment. Their hands were the same size, he noticed. The blue veins stood out on the backs of his father’s hands. 

“You did well, Marco,” Loristan said, and despite everything Marco glowed with pride. His father was pleased with him: everything was all right. “I’ve met with the council, and they told me everything that’s happened.”

“The Rat told me about the plan this evening,” Marco said. “After he saved my life.” 

Loristan sighed. “I never thought it would go wrong like this.” 

Marco had not realized until then that a small part of his mind had still doubted the Rat’s story. But at Loristan’s confirmation that there had been a plan, the last knot in his stomach dissolved. “It was a close thing, but it all came out all right in the end,” Marco said. 

Loristan did not reply. Instead he removed a letter from his pocket, and turned it over in his hands. He seemed...uncertain? 

No. That could not be so. 

But Loristan tapped the letter edgewise against his palm, very much as if he did not know what to do with it, and there was a crease between his brows as he looked into the darkness. “I thought I might wait until you’ve had a good night’s sleep,” he said. “But you will be king, and you won’t be able to save bad news for when you’re well-rested.” He held out the letter, and the top flap fell open, so Marco could see the crest at the head of the paper: an unadorned S in blue ink. Sapt’s crest. “General Sapt shot himself.”

***

_To His Royal Highness King Ivor:_

_I have dishonored my office, my family, and most of all, the vows that I made to the throne of Samavia, and I hereby tender my resignation as General of the Armies of Samavia._

_Your obedient servant,  
Gen. A. F. Sapt._

Terse, to the point: very Sapt. Even to the last, he wrote a strong unwavering hand. 

It seemed to Marco, when he first read the note, that despite the high airy ceilings of the infirmary, he didn’t have room to breathe; so they went out to the battlements. By the flickering lantern light Marco read the note again, holding it in both hands to stop the paper from flapping in the cold wind. It tugged at his hands, as if it wanted to fly away, and he folded it up again and pushed it deep in his pocket. 

“I don’t understand,” said Marco, at last, his breath puffing like smoke in the cold air. “I mean. I understand why he - ” Marco had to swallow, to force the words out: “- why he shot himself - ” 

Like a British officer who shot himself after shaming his regiment, or a samurai committing hara kiri, General Sapt had washed away his dishonor with his own blood. What did Marco think would happen when he told Sapt he had disgraced Samavia? 

Marco found that he was twisting his own hands together. _Like Pontius Pilate_ , he thought, unbidden, and thrust his hands into his pockets again. “But he did disgrace Samavia - he didn’t just disregard my orders, but our laws,” Marco murmured. Then he burst out: “But _why_? Why did he disregard my orders when he knew the Rat wasn’t a traitor?”

“He didn’t know,” said Loristan. 

“What do you mean? He knew about the plan!” 

Loristan sighed, his breath a cloud of white. “He told me the Rat’s plan sounded like a cover for a double cross.”

“The Rat would never betray us,” Marco said. 

“Even you believed that he had,” Loristan pointed out gently. 

It hit Marco on the raw. “I believed because they had proof - because he _confessed_! General Sapt believed the Rat would be a traitor just because he’s a foreigner!”

“General Sapt,” said Loristan, “worked for us in Samavia during decades of Maranovitch and Iarovitch rule. Sometimes he saw more betrayals in a year than I hope to see in a lifetime. And he’s - he was - our spymaster. Of course he was paranoid, Marco. We paid him to be.”

His calm rationality infuriated Marco. “And so he double-crossed the Rat by arresting him as soon as you weren’t here to stop him! And the Rat admired him - ” This was a nightmare. Who would tell the Rat about Sapt’s betrayal? 

“He arrested the Rat a month after I left, when his spies gathered enough information that it would have looked odd if he did _not_ \- not least to the Jiardasians, who must have been testing the Rat’s loyalty to them,” Loristan said. 

Marco would have argued - he wanted to argue - but the Rat had said almost the same thing. He was silent a moment, and then cried, “But he still shouldn’t have ordered the Rat shot!” 

“Of course not,” said Loristan. 

Marco clenched his fists. He wanted someone to _fight_ , someone to shout at, someone who would deserve it, someone like - General Sapt, that afternoon? _You’ve shamed your uniform. You’ve shamed Samavia_. 

But that was true: General Sapt had ordered a man shot without trial. Marco could not be sorry he had said it. “But _why_?” Marco cried. “ _Why_ would he order that?” 

“I suspect he never stopped believing that the Rat might double-cross us.” 

“Then you should never have let the Rat be a spy!” 

“We shouldn’t have,” Loristan agreed, and he sounded so - tired, so defeated. Marco felt suddenly frightened, and very cold. “The Rat thought he could forestall future assassinations if he could learn Jiardasian plans, and we wouldn’t have to risk trying to infiltrate, because the Jiardasians had already approached him - ”

“The Jiardasians approached the _Rat_?” interrupted Marco. 

“Tamboran mentioned you’re getting in the habit of interrupting,” Loristan said, and Marco was embarrassed. “Yes, the Jiardasians approached the Rat; they knew he didn’t get a salary and thought they could lure him away with money.” He lifted a hand to his face, and Marco suddenly noticed the lines in Loristan’s forehead, dark in the shadows cast by the lantern. Goosebumps rose on Marco’s arms. He pulled his coat tighter around himself. 

“I thought it was worth the risk,” Loristan said. “I knew the Rat wouldn’t betray us, and if it could forestall another assassination attempt...” He suddenly put a hand on Marco’s shoulder “I thought I had convinced Sapt. I should have realized his belief would collapse if too much evidence seemed to contradict it. I made a mistake, and I nearly lost you.” His grip grew tight on Marco’s shoulder, and Marco could feel that his hand trembled. “And you nearly lost the Rat; and Samavia lost General Sapt.”

“How do you stand it?” asked Marco. “When you make mistakes?”

“I remember that however much I am suffering, the people my decisions hurt are suffering more,” said Loristan. “And I try to make amends.” 

“And how do you amend someone shooting himself in the head?” Marco asked, and felt, to his surprise, hot tears in his eyes. He reached to rub them away, but his father stayed his hand.

“You honor his memory,” Loristan said. “General Sapt was a good man. He deserves tears.” 

“Then why did he have to order the Rat shot?” Marco asked. His nose was clogged. He checked his pocket for a handkerchief, but his fingers found only General Sapt’s letter, and he jerked his hand away. 

“Because he thought he was right,” said Loristan. 

“But _why_?” demanded Marco; and everything - the Rat’s betrayal that wasn’t, the assassination attempt, Sapt - it was too much: his tears overflowed his eyes, hot on his cold face. 

“I don’t know,” said Loristan. He put his arms around Marco, and Marco, as if he were a little boy again, pressed his face to his father’s shoulder and cried. He had to bend down to do it. They were the same height. “I don’t know.”


	8. Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Rat’s hand moved restlessly on the wheelchair arm. “Maybe it would be better for you if I left. If you got another aide-de-camp...”_

Marco told the Rat about General Sapt’s betrayal that evening. The Rat went very white and said “Oh,” and turned his face away on the pillow, and they were silent for a long time. Marco wondered if the Rat understood. How much morphine had they given him? 

“And the guards?” the Rat said suddenly. 

“What?” said Marco. 

“The guards the Jiardasians killed. Getting me out of the dungeons. Have you seen their parents?” 

“Of course,” said Marco. 

The Rat’s hand did not relax on the chair arm. “Their parents,” the Rat said. “They’re proud of their sons?” 

“Of course,” said Marco, before reflecting that for the Rat, there was no _of course_ about it. Had the Rat’s drunken father ever been proud of him? “They died bravely serving their country. One of them, one of the mothers - Dorina Talovitch sent you this.” 

He laid an embroidered Samavian shirt on the bed, the red flowers bright across the yoke. The Rat’s eyes widened. His shoulders tensed, badly enough that he felt it even through the morphine, and winced. 

“I can’t take that,” said the Rat.

“I think you should,” Marco said, who had discussed it with Loristan. “It’s as close as she can get to giving something to her son; it would be a great kindness to her to take it.” 

The Rat stroked a finger across one of the embroidered flowers. He gathered the shirt to him, holding it to his chest. “It wasn’t supposed to go like this,” he told Marco, lowering his face into the shirt.

“I know,” said Marco. 

***

They buried General Sapt the next morning, as the trumpeter at the barracks played reveille. Marco went, but few others came: just a smattering of old comrades, graying in their outdated uniforms, and Sapt’s young wife Maria with her face hidden by a black lace veil. 

Marco should not have been surprised to see her: he had met her at official parties, had even danced with her at the New Year’s gala the year before. They had laughed. 

Marco felt so guilty that he almost felt sick. 

After the coffin was lowered the other mourners began to drift away, but she stayed to watch the gravediggers, and Marco went over to her. They stood side by side, their feet getting damp from the dew on the grass. Maria twisted a lace-trimmed handkerchief between her hands.

“I’m sorry,” Marco said. “He was a brave man.” 

Maria watched the gravediggers. “I’m thinking of leaving the country,” she said. She twisted the handkerchief so hard that the lace ripped free and drifted to the grass. “I don’t want our Piotr to grow up with...” 

When his son Piotr was born, General Sapt had gotten them all drunk on round after round of plum spirits. Marco had gotten so drunk that he could not remember the Rat helping him to bed. 

“But he died with honor,” Marco said. “And surely - by the time Piotr is grown - surely people will forget.” 

Maria shook her head. “This is Samavia,” she replied. “No one will ever forget.”

***

“She’s right, though,” said the Rat. “Samavians remember everything. You’re proof enough of that.”

They were walking through the gardens, Marco pushing the Rat in a wheelchair that crunched on the gravel paths. Until the Rat’s shoulder healed, he could not use his crutches, and so when Marco could snatch time from council meetings and legislative sessions and court hearings, he took the Rat for walks in the garden. Someone else could have done it, of course, but the Rat hated to have anyone else push his chair. 

And Marco didn’t like anyone else to push the Rat’s chair, either. Who knew where else traitors might lurk? What if they shoved the Rat down the staircase in the center of the garden - or drowned him in the Swan Fountain - or - ? 

“You can’t start seeing traitors everywhere, Marco,” Loristan had said, when Marco voiced this concern. “That way lies Ivan the Terrible.”

“How do I stop?” Marco asked. 

“Give it time,” Loristan advised. “It’s been less than a week, Marco.”

So every evening, when the day’s work was done, Marco pushed the Rat through the garden past the dying flowers. The chair wheels squeaked. They did not talk much.

Except today. The Rat, out of the blue, had asked Marco what Maria intended to do; and Marco had told him. 

“They’ll be better off elsewhere,” the Rat said. “Where no one knows who they are or what they’ve done...”

“But to exile themselves...” Marco said. “Piotr would grow up without a homeland, and always a stranger in a strange land - even if he does come home in the end. Do you really think that’s better?”

“Yes,” said the Rat, and his voice was so definite that it forestalled further questions. Marco pushed the chair further along. Squeak, squeak, squeak. He ought to have the wheels greased. 

They stopped at the terrace overlooking the lake. Marco leaned his elbows on the back of the Rat’s chair, looking over sunset reflected in the still water. A heron rose from the reeds and skimmed across the water, its powerful wings golden in the late sun.

“Marco,” said the Rat abruptly. “I’ve been thinking. I ought to leave Samavia.” 

Marco straightened. “What? Why?” 

“If General Sapt thought I was a traitor...” The Rat’s hand moved restlessly on the wheelchair arm. “Maybe it would be better for you if I left. If you got another aide-de-camp - ”

“I don’t want another aide-de-camp,” Marco interrupted. 

“Someone more Samavian,” said the Rat. “Someone who didn’t just get three - no, four, counting Diardin - four people killed with my st-stupid plan - ”

Marco was too dismayed to think of anything useful to say. “Who is Diardan?” he blurted. 

“The Jiardasian assassin,” said the Rat. “The one I pushed - the one I killed in the chapel. But he doesn’t matter!” he said, twisting to glare at Marco defiantly. But he whipped round to face the lake again almost at once. “He’s the enemy; I shouldn’t care - it doesn’t matter if he’s dead. But the two guards - and General Sapt - they wouldn’t have died if it weren’t for my brilliant plan. You should get an aide-de-camp who isn’t...” His voice faded. He cleared his throat, and said fiercely, “You need an aide-de-camp who isn’t a failure.”

Marco had been standing behind the Rat’s chair, staring with dismay at the back of the Rat’s head, which bowed further and further as he spoke. Of course the Rat felt like that. And he wasn’t even wrong, at least about his plan; but he was wrong, all wrong in his conclusions, because Marco could not possibly have another aide-de-camp. 

Marco walked around the chair, so he and the Rat faced each other. But he couldn’t see the Rat’s face, towering over him like this, and the Rat’s head still bowed. Marco knelt on the granite terrace, so they were almost eye-to-eye. 

The Rat gave Marco a push. “Get up,” he said roughly. “You’re the prince, you can’t kneel to me. What will people think?” 

“That I’m tying your shoe,” Marco suggested. He took the Rat’s hand in his own. “You can’t leave. I don’t want another aide-de-camp - and I couldn’t find a better one than you anyway.” 

The Rat didn’t try to pull his hand away, but he twisted his face away sharply. “I failed,” he said. 

“And so did my father,” said Marco. “And you don’t see him abdicating, do you?” 

_That_ brought the Rat’s head up. “Your father never - ”

“He said to me he did,” said Marco, thinking back to that late night conversation. “Or - not failed. He said he made a mistake. He never should have let you go ahead with your plan, he said.”

“But - ” said the Rat. He sounded scandalized. “It can’t be his fault, that’s ridiculous. The plan didn’t work because I was careless. He didn’t make a mistake.”

“So you’re disagreeing with him?” Marco said. 

“Of course not! I just...he can’t have made a mistake.” The Rat looked at Marco, a sort of pleading in his face. “He’s _Stefan Loristan_.”

“And he said he made a mistake. So either he did make a mistake - or he’s mistaken about making a mistake?” 

The Rat barked out a laugh. “Oh, God - ” He slipped his hand from Marco’s grip, pressing it briefly to his face then letting it drop again to the chair arm. Marco took up his hand again and kissed it, as the Rat had kissed Marco’s signet ring. 

“Stay,” Marco urged. 

The Rat looked away. 

“So we’ve made mistakes,” Marco said. “Will it make them any better if we run away? Should I say, ‘I didn’t trust the Rat, I should run away to Paris and never speak to him again’?”

“No, of course not. But your mistakes didn’t kill anyone - ”

“Only because my guards are terrible shots!” Marco said hotly. “They nearly killed you in the chapel; it’s only luck that they hit your shoulder and not your heart.” He had to stop for a moment, because his heart thudded so hard at those words: he had never quite admitted that to himself before, how close he had come to losing the Rat. “That my next project for you, aide-de-camp,” he said, trying to sound light. “My guards are your new Squad. Teach them marksmanship.” 

The Rat kept his head down. It was getting hard to see his face in the gathering dusk, and uncertainty suddenly flickered through Marco’s mind. Perhaps the Rat was so hurt that Marco had not trusted him that he wanted to go away. “You _want_ to stay, don’t you?” Marco asked.

The Rat looked up at once. “Of course!” he said. “Of course I do; don’t be absurd.”

“Then stay,” said Marco. “Please.” 

The Rat did not speak for a long time, his gaze flickering back and forth between the lake and Marco’s face, and finally falling to the blanket covering his twisted legs. “I’m not sure I’m worthy,” he said huskily. 

“Of course you are,” said Marco. The Rat didn’t answer. “Rat. You nearly _died_ for me.” 

The Rat let out a shuddering breath. “All right,” he said. “I’ll stay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Sineala for being such an enthusiastic beta for this fic, and to surexit for kickstarting The Lost Prince fandom!


End file.
